THE Singapore Institute of Legal Education, charged with shifting lawyer training here to a higher gear, officially opens today. It will, for a start, prepare up to 500 would-be lawyers to sit for qualifying exams next year. It will help another 1,000 lawyers to clock in prescribed training credits to qualify for practice in 2013. The institute, a statutory body whose dean is former attorney-general Walter Woon, will be the sole body tasked with preparing law graduates for practice and upgrading their professional capabilities throughout their careers. It is backed by a high-powered board of directors chaired by Judge of Appeal V.K. Rajah, and whose members include Attorney-General Sundaresh Menon, Judge of Appeal Andrew Phang, and Law Society president Wong Meng Meng. Among the exams it will administer are the Part B exams which all local law graduates, as well as graduat...